p.1 #1 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
Hi all.
I've always used a pc for my photography editing but have recently been looking at
the range of imac's.
My current PC is a massive power-hungry beast but we're moving and I would like to scale down.
I was wondering whats the colour accuracy like on those glorious looking mac 5k screens?
I've also looked into the possibility of using a mac book with an external screen like the BenQ range.
p.1 #3 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
The iMac is a great package but I shoot on location for most of my projects, so I opted for a 15" MBP and a 27" Apple Display. When I have a larger Commercial or Advertising shoot, I will take the Apple Display with me so the Client and Stylists can view images as we shoot. As far as colors go, make sure you're calibrating the system and utilizing a color card for accurate colors.
p.1 #4 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
Sounds like you've already decided to switch to a Mac; is that right? But your complaint seems to be about your current Windows PC, not Windows or PCs in general. Are you prepared to learn new OS workings? Will your budget handle the price difference between a new Mac and a Windows PC?
I'm a Mac user, and I know serious pros who use Macs and others who prefer Windows. You'd probably be fine with a reasonably equipped MacBook Pro, and there are some nice deals to be had just now. Mainstay photo editing apps are cross-platform, but you need to be sure your apps exist on Macs.
Mac color management was superior to Windows for a long time, but I don't know that it's still true, or that the difference is as important as it was. I'm not a fan of Apple's contrasty, bright iMac displays and even if I had an iMac (I don't), I'd get a good third party monitor to use for photo editing and place the iMac to the side for things like editing tools and other apps. That said, I know very famous, well published pros who use nothing but iMacs for editing/publishing.
At the end of the day, before encouraging you to switch to a Mac, I'd invite you to sit down and list what you don't like about Windows and then shop around for Windows and Mac systems that meet your needs and decide from there. Both OSes have usability issues and various problems and strengths. Also keep in mind that Apple's starting another CPU transition in the next year and say they'll have their entire line switched to Arm processors in 2 years. You're in good shape in that you don't have older Mac apps, but it's not yet clear (other than Apple, Adobe and Microsoft) which developers will be supporting Arm (and when). All we know kinda for sure (with Apple, nothing's definite until it ships) is that Intel apps will be supported "for many years" via an arm emulator.
It used to be that I could unequivocally recommend switching to Macs. The last several years, not so much.
p.1 #6 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
Macs are about to change to their own Apple processors, which will be superior to Intel's current offering. That said, the current entry level iMac is more than enough machine for photo processing. iMacs are great. I would not buy a Macbook Pro today unless necessary. Macbooks will benefit greatly from Apple's new processors.
It's unclear if Adobe will initially run well on the new Mac hardware.
p.1 #7 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
I've run nothing but Macs since 1998 and I can tell you they've only gotten better. The screens are amazing... a 27" 5k screen on an iMac is awesome, just make sur eyou color calibrate it properly.
p.1 #8 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
iMac plus iPad pro for travel and on location is a good option. Or MacBook Pro plus a good monitor. Don't lust over the 5k screen. 27" is too small even for 4k, so most people run the iMac scaled down anyway at 2560x1440 or 3200x1800. A good 32" 4k screen plus a MBP would be awesome, IMHO.
p.1 #9 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
saaketham wrote:
iMac plus iPad pro for travel and on location is a good option. Or MacBook Pro plus a good monitor. Don't lust over the 5k screen. 27" is too small even for 4k, so most people run the iMac scaled down anyway at 2560x1440 or 3200x1800. A good 32" 4k screen plus a MBP would be awesome, IMHO.
People with poorer eyesight leave resolution alone and increase font size. Photographers need $10 reading glasses
p.1 #10 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
I just replaced my 4 year old iMac with a new model as the previous one was struggling with 4k video. During the process, I also tried a MBP with external screen. Here's my pros and cons for both:
Pros for the iMac:
- The screen
- 2 TB3 and 4 USB ports
- Everything in one unit
Cons:
- It's not portable
- I have found the screen difficult to calibrate on this model for some reason. My previous version was calibrated and prints matched it to about 98%. This one I'm getting around 90%.
Pros for the MBP:
- Portability
- 4 TB3 ports is you have TB3/USB-C devices
Cons for the MBP:
- Same screen calibration issue as the iMac
- I did not enjoy the experience of attaching an external monitor. My external had a really bad warm and red tint to it that I could not get rid of and it was one of the most recommended models. Calibrating one to the other and getting them to match was damn near impossible.
- The 4 TB3/USB-C ports was also a con. I don't like how everything attaches all on one end (the top), which makes it difficult to use on a desk as you have 2 on one side and 2 on the other side, so cords are going everywhere. The thought of a hub wasn't appealing to me.
- Takes up more space on the desk than an iMac
Those are my takes and everyone is different. I am much preferable to editing on a iMac/desktop unit compared to a laptop as I simply can't really see the laptop screen. For me and my uses, I prefer to have a desktop for editing most of the time and something much smaller for carrying around.
p.1 #11 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
My current setup. External drives (OWC Thunderbay 4) is under my desk and has 2 6tb drives backing up all the main work and 2 500GB SSD drives that hold all the work in process. Additionally, since the OWC has a 2nd USB-C port, I run a 4TB G-Tech drive through that for Time Machine and backups of the SSDs.
One other thing I will mention is, if you go the MacBook Pro route, make sure you have a device that is capable of charging the device so you don't have to use a port for charging. The OWC didn't say it couldn't charge, but it doesn't and that really pissed me off.
I run my OWC to the iMac and my CFExpress reader (the 2 TB3 ports) and then my printer cable and lighting charger to 2 of the 4 USB ports. I can unload 300 images and 6-7 short 4k videos in under a minute (about 58GBs of data).
p.1 #12 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
So the lowest cost of editing 6K video on Apple is $1000 for the iPad Pro. The Apple silicon in the ipad accelerates H265, which is great for cameras like Canon that likes to shoot that format.
So I think in October Apple ships something like this:
Macbook "Air" = performance of the current ipad pro
Macbook Pro 13" = 2x ipad pro perfomance
Apple risks Osborning their Macbook Pro lineup, so predicting what they roll out when is probably uncertain even for Apple. But it seems to me that Apple needs to make a performance statement with their new processors.
iMac is very likely end of life unless users freak out about backwards compatibility. The next iMac will be a new design with Apple silicon. I wonder if they will put a 6K screen in the larger model iMac.
I went a few years with only an Macbook Pro and a large screen. But I use the MBP every day away from the desk. So I really appreciate also having an iMac. The cost premium of an iMac compared to a 5K monitor is small. IMO iMac and iPad Pro are the only really good deals Apple offers.
p.1 #14 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
dcmiller wrote:
People with poorer eyesight leave resolution alone and increase font size. Photographers need $10 reading glasses
On good days, I run my iMac at "Looks like 3200x1800". When my eyes are tired after hours of late night working, I cannot view anything smaller than 2560x1440. So you're right. I still believe 32" is the sweet spot for 4K and anything smaller, most people will have to scale UI elements.
p.1 #15 · Looking for advice on maybe switching to a mac for my photo editing.
A typical photographers monitor is 27" 2560x1440. You can run one of these as a second screen from an iMac. $600-$3000. The less expensive ones require a separate color calibrator.
Regardless of an iMac setting you can't see actual pixels in a photo file. This doesn't matter much if editing for display on screens
